President-elect Joe Biden has expressed support for a second fiscal stimulus package as the winter wave of the coronavirus pandemic takes hold. On Tuesday, his hopes for a second stimulus were buoyed by support from another powerful leader: Jamie Dimon.
"We absolutely need another stimulus package, and it should focus on those who need the help: the long-term unemployed, some of the new unemployed, and you can debate the $200, $300, or $400 extra, but something, and then literally the small businesses," said Dimon, who is the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Wall Street's largest bank by assets.
Dimon made the remarks while speaking at Goldman Sachs' 2020 US Financial Services Virtual Conference on Tuesday.
"The damage will be far less if we help them" by providing short-term economic aid until a vaccine becomes more widely available in springtime, he said, while speaking to Richard Ramsden, Goldman's managing director for equity research, who moderated the discussion.
Meanwhile, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are coalescing around a $908 billion stimulus plan that's attracted support from both Democrats and Republicans. But the bill lacks one major element of earlier fiscal aid: direct stimulus checks.
Earlier this year more than 160 million Americans received checks from the federal government, with the maximum payments being $1,200.
Among the components of the deal that lawmakers are considering now are $300 federal weekly unemployment benefits and $240 billion in new Paycheck Protection Program assistance, Business Insider has previously reported.
For his part, Biden recently opened up about his thoughts on the stimulus debate, saying in Delaware that "if we don't act now, the future will be very bleak," as he underscored his view about the urgency of getting a deal done to blunt further economic fallout.
Dimon praised the Paycheck Protection Program and cast aspersions on long-term remote work
In addition to weighing in on federal stimulus, Dimon also looked back on some of the other defining components of the coronavirus crisis, namely the government's federal loan program and the worldwide pivot to remote work.
In the case of the federal loan program that the government unveiled this spring, he praised the Paycheck Protection Program, a federal loan program designed to buttress US businesses, but which was also encumbered by allegations of misuse and impropriety in the disbursement process.
"I think the government did a very good job, you know, getting out the money and these programs," he said. "Of course, there are always negatives when you roll them out, but who would have thought our government could get programs out like PPP in literally three weeks?" he said, praising the loan program.
Juxtaposed against Dimon's remarks is a spotty history of JPMorgan's relationship with the PPP. Indeed, Bloomberg previously reported that an internal review at the bank found that more than 500 of its employees had received the taxpayer funds, with a handful having had "improperly tapped the program" to divert funds to their own accounts, according to a September report.
And, as far as his thoughts on returning to the office, Dimon made no secret of his lukewarm thoughts about so-called Zoom culture.
"Banks are basically an apprenticeship model where you learn by sitting next to people and going on a trip with them or seeing mistakes being made. Very often you need a lot of collaboration in the room," he said.
But, working virtually, he said, "you miss all of the creative combustion that takes place from having a meeting, but having immediate follow-up."
"You're not going to learn that way by sitting at home," he added, describing the positive effects of working together in person. "We've learned — there will probably be some permanent work from home or rotating work from home that will change how we look at real estate a little bit, but it's not going to change the world, and we still need the collaboration where people work in a room together."
Dimon has been one of Wall Street's primary proponents for encouraging employees to head back to the office. Though his bullishness to see employees return to the physical workplace has been previously documented, employees within the Chase division were recently told that they would be able to continue working remotely "at least through the end of March," according to an excerpt of a memo which was viewed by Business Insider.
What's more, Daniel Pinto, the head of JPMorgan's corporate and investment bank, also told employees earlier this year that they would be able to take advantage of a rotational return-to-work model that might enable them to log time from home regularly.
